


Give Up Like Every Time Before

by thesometimeswarrior



Series: Hold the Fort: Pictures of Hogwarts During the Year of the Carrows [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 7: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Ficlet, Gen, Guilt, Hogwarts Seventh Year, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-22 04:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/pseuds/thesometimeswarrior
Summary: It takes a particular sort of self-awareness, Horace thinks, to admit that one is a coward.





	Give Up Like Every Time Before

**Author's Note:**

> Been a while since I've written in the Harry Potter fandom. This came to me recently.
> 
> Title from the song _How You Survived the War_ by the Weepies, which really is a great song for Slughorn at this moment in the book. I really recommend checking it out!
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

It takes a particular sort of self-awareness, Horace thinks, to admit that one is a coward.

(Dare he even say—a _courageous_ sort?)

No, he decides, staring intently into his glass of Firewhiskey. That would be a stretch, even for him. He is many things—and on his better nights, he can enumerate them like he does his collection of former star pupils, smile at these aspects of himself that he wears on his star-studded sleeves, and then sleep like baby afterward—but _courageous_ is never included in such an oration.

(And, in any case, this is not one of his better nights.)

To be sure, there _is_ courage in these halls. In Minerva’s defiant glares, and Pomona’s compassion, and in the children most of all. Yes, admittedly in some of his collected ones—Ginerva Weasley, for a start—but even more in students he’d brushed aside as unimpressive, even _bumbling_. That Neville Longbottom is a prime example; while Horace had never taught him, it’d been obvious what type of student he had been: clumsy, mediocre in all but one subject. And he had appeared the sort who didn’t carry himself with ease in a crowd, and when one is looking for potentially influential people…

Obviously, Horace had been wrong. Longbottom _is_ influential. But he’s also subjecting himself to torture on the regular—he and his ragtag gang of rebels. They all walk around the school with bloody slashes and bruises and curse scars. And as much as Horace might want to roll his eyes at this behavior and call it fruitless—as much as he might _actually_ do as much during his sober days—he’s forced to admit on a night like this one that it _isn’t_. He knows it isn’t. He sees the effect it has on everyone in the school who isn’t a Death Eater, the hope it brings them, however temporary. And, as begrudgingly as he might admit it, Horace admires them for it, these children. 

(They’re _children_. They’ve always, all of them, just been _children_.)

Not that he will ever express this admiration to them, either verbally or otherwise. Once, he might have invited them to dinner, this motley crew. But not now. 

To be sure, he still hosts his lavish dinner parties, but these days he only invites Death Eater spawn and hopefuls—and of course Death Eaters themselves. Prodigious Slytherins all. Not that he agrees with these Housemates of his, or what that one former prodigious Slytherin has transformed their world into. But, better to keep up appearances. Safer. 

One day soon, after all, Longbottom will be killed, as will his guerrilla army. (Lovegood and Weasley and of course Potter have already gone missing…) Minerva, who wears her allegiance to Dumbledore’s memory on her sleeve, won’t be far behind, once she outlives her utility. But _he_ will survive. No matter the cost, no matter whose feet he may have to kiss, no matter to whom he must perfunctorily swear allegiance, his _true_ allegiance is to himself. To his own survival. 

He _will_ survive. The thought of anything else…

(He forces the alcohol-infused bile back into his stomach.)

(And yet…)

(His last thought before he passes out in his chair, still in his clothes, empty bottle still in his hand, is to ask himself what his life—the life of a pathetic man like him—is really worth in the end.)

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I love comments!


End file.
